Danish architecture studio BIG has revealed its designs for the Hungarian Natural History Museum in the Great Forest, Debrecen.
Located within the centuries-old forest, the new museum will include exhibition space, educational facilities, and public amenities.
BIG envisions the new public and scientific destination as three overlapping ribbons that rise from the forest floor, it said in a statement.
“Natural history is a subject dear to me – so dear that I named my oldest son Darwin,” said Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director, BIG.
“To that end, it is a great honor to have been entrusted with the authorship of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in the great forest of Debrecen.”
The museum was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation and will replace the current institution in Budapest.
New museum in the Great Forest, Debrecen
It will support the government’s goal to establish Debrecen as a key regional hub for education and culture by 2030.
The building will feature a mass timber structure and a charred timber facade, and will be partially sunken into the ground to blend into its surroundings.
It will also have a sloping roof that the public can access for views of the city.
“Our design is conceived as an intersection of paths and lineages,” said Ingels.
“Intersecting ribbons of landscape overlap to produce a series of niches and habitats, halls and galleries, blending the inside and the outside, the intimate and the mastodontic in seamless continuity.
“The result is a manmade hill in a forest clearing; geometrically clear yet softly organic – an appropriate home for the wonders of the natural world.”
Elsewhere, the UK’s Natural History Museum in London is to open a new, free permanent gallery, Fixing Our Broken Planet, today (3 April).
It is part of the museum’s £550 million transformation ahead of its 150th anniversary in 2031.
Images courtesy of BIG
